Well, just the sheer number of particles being used to render each attack, does push even high end cards. But, of course the game is only as fast as the slowest player..... so if you're running with a guy with an old Tandy 2000, its going to be a lag packed ride....
Just to humour myself, I ran this solo with a trainer for minerals, put 10 tanks on each platform with at least 1 of every unit, and didn't start lagging until like wave 27 or so.. Seems to be less of a strain with multiples of same units in tanks (say 4x Zealots, probably only 2x as higher demand on graphics, since animation is slightly increased with more units (see massive phaser beam from a tank with 20 sentry's for details :P)).
Lag is reducable by reducing the number of sound channels to a minimum (tech forums ftw). Apparently the game plays the audio for every attack and action all over the map (even if its behind the fog of war, or otherwise not visible on your screen), just sounds from a long ways away are played at near 0 volume (but still require processing). Setting the number of sound channels to 20, helps a lot (went from a 4 sec per frame game, to 2-3 fps when i told the other 3 how to do that).
And yea, the Collosus gets targetted by several waves, the Overlord, Diamondback's, Brash, and even mini Cyrileo, Herder of the Helpless :P
Its damage does seem a bit high though, 1 guy building tanks, and the other building collos, for same mineral/gas amounts, the collos kill 2x as many units...
Fry Zerglings, Fry!
The electric tanks do rock though, I'm always a fan of direct damage abilities (no projectile travel time, so fewer wasted shots, like 5 missles launched, when first is kill shot).
I also like those modified waves :P Jumbo Firebats Inc :P (this is actually a good method, because the higher amounts of NPC's just cause additional rendering lag for half the players..).
The difficulty increase is mostly due to the cap on damage bonuses to tanks. Putting 10 zealots into a tank, made it do massive amounts of damage per shot, which made armor nearly irrelevant (30 armor reduction on a 50 damage attack is 20 dmg, 30 armor reduction on 130 damage, is still a 100 damage).
I've only managed to beat this on Easy twice, since those changes went through. And even those times, the most successful strat seemed to be Stalkers+Roach's, with 3 of the hero's being the Brut (armor reduction).
4-6 tanks with 1 z, +2-4 stalkers, completely own that first boss wave (ultralisks), since their high damage attack pierces the armor effectively.
Side note.. Are Missle tanks supposed to have 0 splash radius now? Since a lot of the secondary effects are applied through splash damage, 1 roach in a missle tank only applies negative armor debuff to the primary target of the tank... and not the cluster...
Would it be possible to upgrade the tank mode only of tanks? With perhaps a large increase in cost?
Tank mode upgrades = Speed (speed aura)/Missile Tank- Fire's missile's at its target, but no longer causes direct damage in the splash area of effect. The area of splash only applies debuffs from the units inside the missle tank.
Seige mode upgrades = Power Tank(damage aura)/Splash Tank- Reduces damage caused to the primary target of the tank, but increases the amount of damage inflicted upon all enemy units in the splash radius.
And on another side note..
If the idea of Power/Speed tanks remain, can they be changed so that selecting a group of tanks doesn't select them as well? (its just a name change now, and selecting a group to move to an area also selects them, taking up good firing position real estate... kinda prefer them out of the way since they can't attack...)
Viking speed was a mistake on my half, i must have hit 3 instead of 2, I reduced the brutalisks radius/size thing a ton(it was like 2.9.. made it 0.75) I'll be doing some balance tweeks as well, should have a version out today(hopefully) I'm going to add Hover to all air waves and make missile tank deal bonus damage to hover, this was the intended AA unit.
Excellent.
And on a smaller side note, Sir Moosealot and the other flavour named NPC on southeast corner (forgot name), somehow are attackable now :P
Also, the Brut gets attacked by Mr Brain eater, and killed mine 3 times on the final wave (FINALLY on EASY with a group of non-smuck players....).
But yea, the Viking wave in particular is kinda brutal, because they move fast and have very high armor (not much time to get any decent stacks of armor debuff up... unless all 4 players are going heavy armor reduction).
Not sure how complicated it is to add secondary effects to other units, but think if would be possible to have one of the garrisoned units add armor reduction/bypass to the tank and/or to garrisoned units? (with same limit 4 stacking). Beyond the 4 zealots and zerg, there's not really much difference in the units you choose (other than damage vs type, like Stalker or Ghost). Would definately bring a bit more realistic goal for killing this on normal/hard modes.
O, the new Brutallus hero seems to have a massive hit box (it is a large model... but still, takes up 1/3 of the platform...), and it doesn't seem to be invulnerable... Randomly there'll be random 'allies under attack' at the beginning of a larger wave (guessing its when to many creatures are having pathing issues), and randomly wtf own the Brut..
I still think this map is overtunned, still haven't managed to get past wave 27-28. Tried with heavy ArP units, high damage (stalkers), both with heavy stacks of empowered Zealots+Zerglings...
Was the armor value for everything tripled or something?
The patch must have done something with the lobby, I never really did this stuff it was Brash, the lobby was always messed up.. The unit nerf aint really a nerf, if their inside a tank theey get their range back.. If anyone knows how to work this lobby menu-thing of a pain in the ass i'd love you forever
Well, if you set the game's settings to Defense, and not the default Custom, its switches back to 4players, and works properly.
Problem with that is, have to create a new game, then wait 10min for people to join.... but it does work fine then...
But..
The unit range this is a nerf..
And I take that back about north/south platforms getting range...
Only the North platform, with Zealots along the very edge (closest to spawn), can hit incoming enemies while garrisoned.... I can take a SS if you like.. Its bad..
Cyrileo, somethings gone completely wonkers with your map >.<
Ever since 1.0, its been allowing 5 players to join the map, with the 5th player having direct control over the attacking spawns (IE they order them to move to
HQ and attack directly, instead of pathing)
The HQ has become directly attackable by tanks (Griefing by sore players Inc)
The 5 players are broken into 2 teams, of which the person in the team with the 5th player, isn't able to directly attack the incoming adds (forcing the Attack command works, but is annoying)
As of 1.0, random players werent getting any starter resources... or getting a reduced amount for some reason (perhaps going to the 5th player? idk).
1.1 issues..
The unit range nerf was pretty bad.. Units can't even attack from within missle tanks or siege tanks on the left/right platform (Stalkers/marines/zerglings/zealots), but can from north/south ones, and just barely.
@marcxdid: Go
Well, just the sheer number of particles being used to render each attack, does push even high end cards. But, of course the game is only as fast as the slowest player..... so if you're running with a guy with an old Tandy 2000, its going to be a lag packed ride.... Just to humour myself, I ran this solo with a trainer for minerals, put 10 tanks on each platform with at least 1 of every unit, and didn't start lagging until like wave 27 or so.. Seems to be less of a strain with multiples of same units in tanks (say 4x Zealots, probably only 2x as higher demand on graphics, since animation is slightly increased with more units (see massive phaser beam from a tank with 20 sentry's for details :P)).
@marcxdid: Go
Lag is reducable by reducing the number of sound channels to a minimum (tech forums ftw). Apparently the game plays the audio for every attack and action all over the map (even if its behind the fog of war, or otherwise not visible on your screen), just sounds from a long ways away are played at near 0 volume (but still require processing). Setting the number of sound channels to 20, helps a lot (went from a 4 sec per frame game, to 2-3 fps when i told the other 3 how to do that).
And yea, the Collosus gets targetted by several waves, the Overlord, Diamondback's, Brash, and even mini Cyrileo, Herder of the Helpless :P Its damage does seem a bit high though, 1 guy building tanks, and the other building collos, for same mineral/gas amounts, the collos kill 2x as many units...
@KevinGilbert: Go
Well, that isn't just the hero, any and all units inside transports are destroyed when its found.
Love the new version. Brash sure has a hard head since he got moved back in the wave numbers :P
There is a wave where you use your transports/move, wave 31. When I kill my 2 incoming adds, I blink my tanks clockwise to get them caught up :P
Thanks for another great update Cyrileo :)
Fry Zerglings, Fry! The electric tanks do rock though, I'm always a fan of direct damage abilities (no projectile travel time, so fewer wasted shots, like 5 missles launched, when first is kill shot).
I also like those modified waves :P Jumbo Firebats Inc :P (this is actually a good method, because the higher amounts of NPC's just cause additional rendering lag for half the players..).
The difficulty increase is mostly due to the cap on damage bonuses to tanks. Putting 10 zealots into a tank, made it do massive amounts of damage per shot, which made armor nearly irrelevant (30 armor reduction on a 50 damage attack is 20 dmg, 30 armor reduction on 130 damage, is still a 100 damage).
I've only managed to beat this on Easy twice, since those changes went through. And even those times, the most successful strat seemed to be Stalkers+Roach's, with 3 of the hero's being the Brut (armor reduction). 4-6 tanks with 1 z, +2-4 stalkers, completely own that first boss wave (ultralisks), since their high damage attack pierces the armor effectively.
Side note.. Are Missle tanks supposed to have 0 splash radius now? Since a lot of the secondary effects are applied through splash damage, 1 roach in a missle tank only applies negative armor debuff to the primary target of the tank... and not the cluster...
Would it be possible to upgrade the tank mode only of tanks? With perhaps a large increase in cost? Tank mode upgrades = Speed (speed aura)/Missile Tank- Fire's missile's at its target, but no longer causes direct damage in the splash area of effect. The area of splash only applies debuffs from the units inside the missle tank. Seige mode upgrades = Power Tank(damage aura)/Splash Tank- Reduces damage caused to the primary target of the tank, but increases the amount of damage inflicted upon all enemy units in the splash radius.
And on another side note.. If the idea of Power/Speed tanks remain, can they be changed so that selecting a group of tanks doesn't select them as well? (its just a name change now, and selecting a group to move to an area also selects them, taking up good firing position real estate... kinda prefer them out of the way since they can't attack...)
Excellent. And on a smaller side note, Sir Moosealot and the other flavour named NPC on southeast corner (forgot name), somehow are attackable now :P
@marcxdid: Go
Also, the Brut gets attacked by Mr Brain eater, and killed mine 3 times on the final wave (FINALLY on EASY with a group of non-smuck players....).
But yea, the Viking wave in particular is kinda brutal, because they move fast and have very high armor (not much time to get any decent stacks of armor debuff up... unless all 4 players are going heavy armor reduction).
Not sure how complicated it is to add secondary effects to other units, but think if would be possible to have one of the garrisoned units add armor reduction/bypass to the tank and/or to garrisoned units? (with same limit 4 stacking). Beyond the 4 zealots and zerg, there's not really much difference in the units you choose (other than damage vs type, like Stalker or Ghost). Would definately bring a bit more realistic goal for killing this on normal/hard modes.
@Cyrileo: Go
O, the new Brutallus hero seems to have a massive hit box (it is a large model... but still, takes up 1/3 of the platform...), and it doesn't seem to be invulnerable... Randomly there'll be random 'allies under attack' at the beginning of a larger wave (guessing its when to many creatures are having pathing issues), and randomly wtf own the Brut..
I still think this map is overtunned, still haven't managed to get past wave 27-28. Tried with heavy ArP units, high damage (stalkers), both with heavy stacks of empowered Zealots+Zerglings... Was the armor value for everything tripled or something?
@Cyrileo: Go
1.2 still has the 5player part, and the HQ is still attackable directly by anyone :(
Well, if you set the game's settings to Defense, and not the default Custom, its switches back to 4players, and works properly. Problem with that is, have to create a new game, then wait 10min for people to join.... but it does work fine then...
But.. The unit range this is a nerf.. And I take that back about north/south platforms getting range...
Only the North platform, with Zealots along the very edge (closest to spawn), can hit incoming enemies while garrisoned.... I can take a SS if you like.. Its bad..
http://img72.imageshack.us/i/screenshot2010081717303.jpg/
SS of several tanks, all stacked with Zealots (about half Empowered), and not a single one firing from point blank range...
Cyrileo, somethings gone completely wonkers with your map >.<
Ever since 1.0, its been allowing 5 players to join the map, with the 5th player having direct control over the attacking spawns (IE they order them to move to HQ and attack directly, instead of pathing)
The HQ has become directly attackable by tanks (Griefing by sore players Inc)
The 5 players are broken into 2 teams, of which the person in the team with the 5th player, isn't able to directly attack the incoming adds (forcing the Attack command works, but is annoying)
As of 1.0, random players werent getting any starter resources... or getting a reduced amount for some reason (perhaps going to the 5th player? idk).
1.1 issues.. The unit range nerf was pretty bad.. Units can't even attack from within missle tanks or siege tanks on the left/right platform (Stalkers/marines/zerglings/zealots), but can from north/south ones, and just barely.